Operation Bikini

Operation Bikini, also titled The Seafighter, is a war film released in 1963 by American International Pictures. It was directed by Anthony Carras and starred Tab Hunter, Frankie Avalon and Scott Brady. The casting was aimed to capture a varied audience. While Operation Bikini was nominally a World War II war movie, it shared a number of cast members—Avalon, Jody McCrea and Eva Six—with American International's Beach Party (soon to become a franchise), and thrown into the mix were character actor Jim Backus, former screen heartthrob Tab Hunter and Gary Crosby (son of Bing). Avalon sings in two musical interludes, which were shot in color despite the fact that the rest of the film is black and white. Plot The film takes place aboard an American submarine in the Pacific during World War II. The sub's commander is ordered to stop to pick up an underwater demolition team led by Lt. Hayes whose mission is to locate and destroy an American submarine that had sunk in a lagoon off Bikini Atoll before the Japanese are able to raise it and capture the advanced radar system on board. The members of the demolition team include Seaman Joseph Malzone, Will Sherman and Ronald Davayo, the only member of the team who speaks Japanese. Malzone carries a photo of his girl, which he affixes to the torpedo above his bunk. In two musical (and colorful) dream sequences, Malzone expresses his devotion to "The Girl Back Home."